Recapping Yesterday’s Busy Day in the House

House lawmakers met for a marathon day of legislative business yesterday and into the early morning hours today, where they cleared several pending bills. Here’s an overview of what happened and what to watch for next week:

• Landmark Digital Asset Bills Pass Overwhelmingly. It’s a watershed moment for digital assets in Washington after House lawmakers overwhelmingly passed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act and the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act with strong bipartisan support. The stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act now heads to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature, while House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) Chair French Hill’s (R-AR) bipartisan digital asset market structure legislation will head to the Senate for further consideration. Chair Hill is expected to work with the White House to jam the Senate on passing the CLARITY Act without changes so that it can be signed into law expeditiously. However, it remains to be seen if the authors of bipartisan digital asset legislation in the Senate — including Sens. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) — will go along with this plan. The group has been planning to put out a revised version of their market structure legislation at some point this month.
• Context & Next Steps. Earlier this week, House leadership had to break a legislative logjam spurred by Freedom Caucus opposition to the creation of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Specifically, 13 GOP lawmakers held up proceedings throughout the week with concerns that both GENIUS and CLARITY would offer some sort of backdoor to the formation of a CBDC. Freedom Caucus conservatives ultimately secured an agreement in principle with House leadership to add anti-CBDC language to the fiscal year (FY) 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). While this may be needed to ensure the NDAA’s passage in the House, any future CBDC language is unlikely to survive in the Senate, especially as leadership looks to bat down the possibility of other banking-related amendments getting tacked onto the annual defense policy bill — including the Marshall/Durbin Credit Card Competition Act.

• House Approves $9B Rescissions Package. House leadership used a procedural maneuver to “deem” the White House’s $9 billion rescissions package as passed, officially sending the measure to President Trump’s desk for signature at some point later today. The forthcoming cuts are likely to cause serious issues for the bipartisan appropriations process this fall, as Democrats have warned they will not support a deal to keep the government funded past Sept. 30 once the funding is clawed back. Adding further fuel to the fire is the fact that the White House also plans to issue additional rescissions requests in the coming weeks as the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) looks to codify cuts targeted by the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” or “DOGE.” Additionally, House lawmakers passed the FY 2026 spending bill for Defense during yesterday’s session.

• Senate Eyes ‘Test Vote’ on Four-Bill Spending Package. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is eyeing votes on as many as four FY 2026 spending bills next week the chamber looks to move the spending bills for Agriculture-FDA, Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), Military Construction-VA, and Legislative Branch before leaving for the August state work period. Next week’s procedural vote on the House-passed MilCon-VA bill — the legislative vehicle that will carry whichever bills get added to the underlying base text — will serve as a test to determine whether this first “minibus” spending package can meet the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate. While these four bills passed the committee with bipartisan support, lingering disagreements over the 12 topline spending figures, as well as the White House’s funding clawbacks, could stand as barriers to final passage on the floor. To that end, a continuing resolution (CR) will almost certainly be needed to keep the government funded past Sept. 30, but it remains to be seen if Congress will be able to get it done on a bipartisan basis.

• House Set to Close Out Summer Work Session. Barring any last-minute changes to the schedule from leadership, the House will meet for its last week of legislative business before the August district work period. Of note, leadership has filed nearly two dozen bills that “may” be considered under suspension of the rules next week. This includes a slate of bipartisan bills from HFSC that would: (1) require the Comptroller to study the costs associated with small- and medium-sized companies to undertake initial public offerings (IPO) H.R. 3395 (2) amend the Federal securities laws to specify the periods for which financial statements are required to be provided by an emerging growth company H.R. 3343 and (3) establish an Independent Financial Technology Working Group to Combat Terrorism and Illicit Financing H.R. 2384 It’s also possible that the House takes up a Senate-passed bill S. 423 that would direct the Department of Veterans Affairs to keep Congress advised about any budget shortfalls and create a new Veterans Experience Office to “determine veteran and beneficiary satisfaction.”